Y'know I still can't believe this thing has six chapters actually posted online (NEAT!^^) But yeah, this is basically art for chapter six of the fic! I really love how my digital art has been improving alongside this project, I'm impressed with myself. Anyways, about the cover, it has to be one of my favorites because of the sunset-esque shading, but most importantly because of the backdrop, it was inspired by random water levels of some of the games I’ve played over the years since Starmarniez (Blawsth fishing village Ash and Co. stay at for this chapter) resides by a lake.

Here's Cianna, the gal introduced in this chapter. Her sailor motifs were inspired by an old trainer OC I made once, and I went with the Her color scheme (specifically her tights) was also based on lighthouses, and I thought it was all very fitting with her debut considering the fact that they all go fishing in this one!

Here's the traditional sketch for this chapter, they're supposed to be the fakemon guppies of Blawsth (it's not even all of

them!). I'm planning to make a website to host the fic on (becasue AO3 can be pretty finicky at times (I swear whenever it trends on Tumblr, it's usually because 99% of the time it's down :P), and will also contain the actual fakemon list with Dex entries, at least once my coding skills get better of course. Since this is just a fan project and I'm not advertising a game, I don't feel the pressure to reveal a bunch of pokemon every chapter, because if I did then it would have delayed this chapter even more than it was supposed to.

Anyways, as for the fakemon art I actually made, Docwah was inspired by poppet dolls, only meshed with a plush animal. I opted for a weird mismatch of different animal parts since I didn’t want to make a bear, cat, or bunny. It’s pink and yellow because I was seriously struggling on either making it white, grey, or navy, but then I struggled onto what shade though, and should the yellow be on the outside, or in the stripes?

And Orkasha is obviously based on both killer whales and sharks! I didn’t want this guy to rely solely on its fins for movement as I wanted it to be agile, so I made the accursed decision to make walk on its hind tail, Sharktales style! It’s a lighter shade of navy because I didn’t want it to be pure black or deep blue. Creme and additional splotches of light blue was added to complete this sort of palette I was going for. I really like finding the palette out in nature since it always directs back into the ocean’s shores, which I always have to visit whenever I get the chance to. Also, the light blue was also added to give the allusion of scars actual sharks have. I was worried that this one would be too similar to Sharkpedo, but the concept’s a little different when it comes to the whole diving and professional olympic swimmer aspect. I also chose to base it off killer whales since alongside sharks, they are often misinterpreted as being man-eating monsters (this also just fits the themes the fic is going for) (also I just really like the ocean man :D).

Oh yeah, and as for the gym leader roster art, I made it with them with the intent that they all wore something that obscured their faces (EX: quirky glasses!!), and that you wouldn't be able to guess exactly what typing they were right off the bat (and here is what I mean by that). In the fic I actually had a little game set up by the end of the author's notes that basically let the reader guess what typing they actually were, with a different variant of the fullbody roster image being made for this purpose. The reasons for this are to mostly contribute to story themes since they end up being real involved in the story's plotline.

And for this chapter's flavortext, it's basically Gary getting lowkey traumatized after reading some of Professor Oak's notes, not just about some multiverse crap some researchers in Sinnoh found out about after he left, but also about the Professor making a personal commentary over his own health after the Ash Has To Get Knee Surgery Incident a couple months prior to the actual fic events (mostly based on the fact that gameverse Oak has some god awful memory so it's just real interesting they set his age to fifty in the Pokemon 4Ever movie. I don't blame either Blue/Gary for acting like that towards the main character, alzheimer's sucks to have, regardless of age.) Also, it's to help place exactly where in the anime timeline this fic is supposed to take place in, in addition to just helping to set up a general timeline for story events since it's actually about to pick up steam after the next chapter, being the Shafter gym leader fight. Here's the text to read and before you ask "damg why dis fic so sad? :(" it's bcuz I'm SAD! and MAD! >:(

Oh yeah and the final art at the end of the chapter is supposed to be the teaser for Shafter's gym, I may get finish with that real quick since it's actually a lot less images to compile and I'm not working on an entire gym leader roster on my little motorola phone (I decided to get done first since I wanted to do it for last chapter, and I knew that it'll probably be smooth sailing from here since most of the human characters are finally drawn digitally!).